


Memories

by FictionPenned



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alex asked why we even have this lever, Angst, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Memories, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24378079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: The Doctor reads it five times. She checks the date and time it was sent over and over again to make sure that it's just a ghost and Rose Tyler hasn't managed to step between universes again.Hope flickers and dies, overwhelmed by grief.She should delete it, but she doesn't.The Doctor’s always been a bit of a hoarder.The memory of Rose Tyler dominates the Doctor's life, and after centuries of grieving, the Doctor finally decides to move on.Written for the DW Creators Style Swap, in which I was challenged to write in the style of regenderate.
Relationships: The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler, The Doctor/Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54
Collections: DW Creators Writing Style Swap





	Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [regenderate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/regenderate/gifts).



The echo of Rose Tyler appears in unexpected places.  
  


Rose Tyler is remembered in the pages of a book that the Doctor idly plucked off the shelf one afternoon. Bubbling, dancing handwriting fills up the title page, written in pink ink.  
  


_Saw this in a shop and thought of you. Bit ridiculous, though. Can't imagine why anyone would fall for a time traveller.  
  
_

The words give the Doctor pause, and she runs a finger over the lines, feeling the indentation of pen on paper, imagining the smile on Rose's face as she considered what might be worth writing.

She almost forgets that Rose is gone.

But then reality comes flooding back, and she drags a stool across the room and tucks the book away on the very top shelf, where it might be both safe and unseen forever.

If not forever, it will at least be safe and unseen until she's goes back to being tall.

She doesn't know when that will be. 

Or if it will ever be.

( Just as she doesn't know if Rose's absence will ever stop hurting. )   
  
( Or if she'll ever be able to forgive herself for the part that she played in _causing_ that absence. )

Rose Tyler is remembered in the TARDIS interface.

"Give me someone I like," the Doctor asks in a fit of desperation, tired of looking upon her own faces.

The projected image morphs into a familiar blonde, short and determined and sporting a leather jacket. The picture of Rose as she last saw her, parting ways on a beach in an alternate universe.

She doesn't know if Rose is still there, if she's happy, if being with an imitation of her was enough to set her free.

The thought sends her spiraling.

"Someone, _anyone_ else. Please."

The TARDIS obliges.

Rose Tyler is remembered in the benches that lurk in the corners of the console room.

"Nowhere to sit in here, is there?" Rose Tyler observed once, centuries ago, spinning in judgmental circles with her hands perched in the pockets of her jeans.

"Why would you sit? There's a whole universe to see. Come on," the Doctor replied, grabbing the girl's hand and pulling her out the doors.

"Don't you ever want a breather?" Rose asked. "Sit down, take in the moment, think over some stuff?”

"No."

That was true then, and it's true now. In those days, the Doctor was running from the Time War. Now, she's running from the realization that nothing she does ever seems to matter. She saved Gallifrey, and it burned anyway.

The Doctor tosses a coat over one of the benches.

If she can't see it, then it doesn't exist.

Rose Tyler is remembered in the shirt that Yasmin Khan throws at the Doctor on laundry day.

"I have other shirts," the Doctor says, looking at Yaz with a wrinkled nose and great disdain, like a cat that has just been told that it needs a bath. "Got a box of them. Don't really want to wear anything else."

"They're all dirty. You don't have to change for very long, and besides, I pulled something else for you to wear in the meantime. Same material and everything, look."

The shirt that Yaz throws at the Doctor is old and pink and wrinkled.

It takes the Doctor a moment to place its familiarity, to unfold it and reveal a printed crown and a host of memories.

She drops it almost immediately, so quickly that one would think it caught fire.

"Can't wear that," she says, shoving her hands into her pocket and turning away so that Yaz can't see the shock in her expression.

"Why not? Belong to an old girlfriend or something?"

The question's meant to be a joke, but the Doctor responds with the utmost seriousness.

"Yes."

Yaz doesn't make her change for either this laundry day or the countless laundry days that follow. 

Rose Tyler is remembered in the text messages that slip through out of sequence.

For the most part, the Doctor's phone is chronolocked. It's a neat little trick that the TARDIS does, and it keeps her time stream mostly in order, however, sometimes things are missed and forgotten.

Mostly, she gets texts from O. They are things that would've seemed innocuous months ago, but now they color her world in orange dust and fire and rage.

Once, however, a message from Rose comes through, hundreds of years too late.  
  


** SMS: You're late.  
  
**

The Doctor reads it five times. She checks the date and time it was sent over and over again to make sure that it's just a ghost and Rose Tyler hasn't managed to step between universes again.

Hope flickers and dies, overwhelmed by grief.

She should delete it, but she doesn't.

The Doctor’s always been a bit of a hoarder.  
  


Rose Tyler is remembered in the steps of the dance that she does with Yaz. Clasped hands and careful spins and smiles that shouldn't be nervous but are anyway.

Yaz's touch is warm.

The Doctor's palms are sweaty.

The frantic beating of three hearts is enough to set anyone wild.

For a moment, they both consider the thought of closing the scant space between them, but hesitation holds them back.

"The world doesn't end if the Doctor dances,"  Rose said once, hand outstretched, eyes slight with mischief.

It's not the dancing that the Doctor is worried about. 

Rose Tyler is remembered in the countless _what if's_ that plague the Doctor on the rare occasions when she tries to sleep.

What if things had been different?

What if she had done better?

What if the universe was kinder?  


What if the memories of Rose are holding her back?  


What if she's using Rose as an excuse to hold herself back?  


She has loved and lost in the interim.

She married River, after all, but River’s gone too, lost in the annuls of time.

Perhaps that has made her feel Rose's loss all the harder. Emotions tend to be magnified in repetition. 

Maybe the Doctor finally needs to let go.  
  


Rose Tyler is remembered on the day when the Doctor resolves to move forward.

She unhides the book with Rose’s inscription in it, putting it back where it belongs.

She resets the TARDIS interface to the default cycle of imagined strangers.

She uncovers the benches and invites the fam to sit.

She picks up the t-shirt from where it was abandoned on the floor and puts it away properly, but not before smelling it to see if the scent of Rose’s perfume still lingers in the fabric. 

( It was wishful thinking. )

She doesn’t delete the late text, but she archives it, tucking it out of sight so that she can look at it only when she’s ready.

And the next time the opportunity arrives, she kisses Yasmin Khan without hesitation or regret.  
  
  


  
The Doctor dares to think that Rose Tyler would have approved. 


End file.
